A matter of pride
by Blake Grey
Summary: Just a little oneshot idea I created to help myself vent at Chie because of a little event in Persona 4. Further details in the A/N inside.


**A/N:** Yeah I know I shouldn't be doing this but oh dear God do I have to get this out of my system. I am currently playing through Persona 4 Golden and I just got to the Friday before the cultural festival. Which led to this. So yeah I made up a Persona 4 OC who was also in Persona 3. Nobody gives a damn about his story so all you need to know is that he has met two wild cards and is quite familiar with dealing with people like Chie and Yosuke. So here we go.

 **A matter of pride**

Standing behind Yosuke while he was talking to Chie I was fuming. I had been entered in a bloody cross-dressing pageant because of something Yosuke did. Now normally I could accept that and would throw Yosuke towards a weak shadow as a mild form of revenge. Wouldn't be the first time I let a pervert get roughed up for dragging me into one of his stupid plots. But this? This was worse for an entirely different reason. And Chie all puffed up in anger in her bloody green ensemble was just about to give me my opening. "Oh come on its not a matter of pride." I could hear her scoff at the ridiculousness of it.

"The hell it isn't!" I growled out making her step back slightly in shock at the anger in my voice. "This is nothing but petty revenge. Which if it were just that I could understand. Heavens knows Yosuke deserves this for some of the stupid crap he pulled, this being one of them. But involving the rest of us? Who didn't know what he was doing and two of us not wanting to get dragged into it?" I glanced at the leader of our little group as I said that. Sure he was younger than me by about a year but I've followed someone like him before and I think I should do so again. But that was not the point right now. Turning my glare back on a now slightly pale Chie I continued. "You went out of your way to humiliate your friends. And saying Rise put you up to it? Well I guess she doesn't care as much about her precious senpai as we all thought. Because I would not do anything as demeaning as this to somebody in response to something they weren't involved in."

I ignored the other guys' attempts to stop me and kept going. "You know what this is Chie? It's pathetic and childish. You have to get on stage and tell an audience a bit about yourself. That's it. You would have to do the same if it was your first day at a new bloody school! So don't you dare tell me this makes us even got it? You are lashing out and severely punishing those with no involvement because you have a little stage fright. Grow the hell up." Turning I stepped closer to our quiet leader and lowered my voice so that only our group would hear us. "So help me if you put me on a team with them before I've calmed down the only helping hand I'll give will be to drag their unconscious bodies away from the shadows." I glared at Yosuke as I finished my sentence.

"Me? What did I do?" Just as Yosuke finished speaking my foot lashed out as I kicked him in the shin. I would have aimed a little higher but I don't want him to be able to get out of his punishment due to severe pain. With that and a final glare at Chie I stomped out of the room. I would still go through with it, I really didn't have any other choice, but I'd be doing it on my own. And so help me I would do a much better job than the girls would. If the baby wants to get me involved in her little temper tantrum, then I will show her why you never mess with me on any playing field. I will get revenge for this. While taking some photos of Yosuke and posting them around Junes. His damn fault I'm in this so he needs to be punished further too.

 _-After the competitions-_

Turns out I didn't need to do anything to humiliate Chie further. Teddie did that for me. I gave up on winning when I heard he had entered. Damn bear is way too perfect looking for someone who was just an empty costume at one point. Although I did have a couple of classmates ask me for some make up tips so I suppose I won in that regard. Did a better job than the others just like I wanted to, well except Naoto but that naïve girl was never included in my ire. I could never stay mad at her. It would be like getting mad at Nanako, it just makes you feel bad.

But honestly I'm glad I lost. No way I would have come up with such an idea upon being told I won a place as a judge. Boy did Chie and Yukiko flip out upon hearing about a swimsuit competition. Of course I made sure to tell Chie that such an _embarrassing_ thing never would have happened if she didn't sign us up for the pageant. Karma sure is sweet sometimes. I also used it to get the girls to apologise to the guys after a misunderstanding with the hot spring times. They weren't going to but they needed to own up to their mistakes of course they only did so a few days after but better late than never.

It was also why I held back our leader and Kanji when Yosuke suggested jumping in with the girls in their rooms. I've been in enough situations like this to know that something bad was about to happen. The fact that there was no way the girls would have left the hot springs yet added to my feelings. Then the two of them came screaming back in talking about being violated by Ms. Kashiwagi and Hanako Ohtani. That's two for Karma and common sense. All in all, I was feeling a lot better now that punishment had been served. That didn't mean I was going to get rid of the pictures of Yosuke in drag or not bring up how the swimsuit portion was Chie's fault. But that would only be if they did something extremely stupid involving me again. For now, I was going to keep wearing that oh so special 'I told you so' grin until enough time had passed.

All this did teach me something though. I had been through something like this before with some very similar people. At times I asked myself why I was going through it again. Especially considering how things ended last time. But now I think I know. Sure these kids could probably handle it on their own, they are quite strong after all, but having someone who has done this before and knows how to deal with that special type of stupidity that results in different personalities would make it a whole lot easier on them. At least I hope it will. I won't be telling any of them this. They don't need to know about my past or what happened a couple of years ago. Though if this leader is anything like my old one, and the gathering of friends and female companions tells me he is, then I bet he will figure it out soon enough. Must be something about that power of bonds Igor mentioned. Or maybe that multiple Persona thing nobody else wants to call him on. Oh well I suppose I'll find out.


End file.
